Just got word that my proposal for the Convergence on Poetics Conference was accepted. The Conference will take place September 27-30, 2012 in the North Creek Events Center at University of Washington Bothell. I am quite hyped about this because check this line-up of attendees:
Charles Altieri, Marie Annharte, Charles Bernstein, Amaranth Borsuk, Rebecca Brown, Tisa Bryant, Rebecca Cummins, Michael Davidson, Sarah Dowling, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Kathleen Fraser, Elisabeth Frost, Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian, Jeanne Heuving, Ted Hiebert, Cynthia Hogue, Bhanu Kapil, Clark Lunberry, Joe Milutis, Aldon Nielsen, Candice Rai, Brian Reed, Leonard Schwartz, Evie Shockley, Ron Silliman, Barrett Watten, Tyrone Williams
I will be presenting "React - A Poetics of the After." Here is the abstract I submitted:
More than we – poets, contributors to the poetic community, and poetic theorists – have acknowledged, there has been a Poetics of Reaction at hand. If we view this idea on the immediate large scale we see; Langpo > Conceptual Writing > Lyric Conceptualism >… Each one of these schools is a direct reaction to what came before it. Kenneth Goldsmith stated, “The New Sentence? The Old Sentence, reframed, is enough. How to proceed after the deconstruction and pulverization of language that is the 20th century’s legacy? Should we continue to pound language into ever smaller bits or should we take some other approach?” Sina Queyras stated, “Lyric Conceptualism does not accept that content does not matter and still appreciates the way that content does not always matter.” Each of these statements is directed at schools that immediately preceded the time and writing that Goldsmith and Queyras are writing on behalf of. How does this influence one’s writing? For some poets there is a reaction that encompasses what they produce.
Whether it be on a larger scale or a more personal scale, reacting is always at hand. The entire body of work of a poet like Will Alexander is embedded with reaction. Being from south central Los Angeles, his father being a World War II veteran, and having work jobs like the ticket booth at the Staple Center, Will Alexander is a surrealist poet – surrealist being key here. Alexander’s language of choice is sophisticated and science based, an opposite end of the spectrum from his upbringing and lived life – an absolute reaction to his life as a whole.
